In an earlier post, I mentioned in passing the blog for the BookEnds literary agency. Now I’m here to direct you to something specific and invaluable on that blog: “Perfecting Your Pitch.”

Back in October, Jessica asked readers to submit pitches for critique. The first great thing about this is that there are now about 250 real-world examples of the kinds of pitches literary agents receive sitting in the comments to that post. (And if you don’t realize how useful it is to know how people are pitching their books to agents, then pffft. Go clean out your fridge or something. Seriously—what are you doing here?)

The second great thing about this is that Jessica, who originally intended to do “as many as she could,” has so far done 124 of them and seems set on forging through many more. By the time she’s done, you’ll have access to perhaps as many as 250 pitch critiques—250 opportunities to see see what worked, what didn’t and why, straight from the literary agent’s mouth.

If you’re writing a novel, set aside fifteen minutes once a week to read through some critiques. Be sure to read the reader comments to the critiques, too—there’s good stuff there. And write your own pitches! Heck, write one now before you even read the first round of critiques. Then revise, revise, revise based on what you learn. This is no doubt going to help you pitch your book to an agent later, but it also just might help you tighten up the book itself.

You can access the critiques she’s done so far here, with the most recent at the top: Pitch Critiques

Today’s resource you can add to your f-list: literary agent Jennifer Jackson, aka arcaedia, regularly blogs about publishing and agent-y thing on her LJ.

And speaking of agents who blog, Miss Snark stopped actively blogging last May, but her archive is full of useful information. You might also check out Bookends, Nathan Bransford, Jonathan Lyons, Kristin Nelson and nephele.

The first part of Deadlock Rot follows the bad guy¹, which means, I think, that he can’t really look like The Bad Guy. He’s not a super villain, and he’s not picking raw baby meat out of his back molars, so if I treat him like he’s the bad guy in these early chapters, I think he’d just come off looking like A Cardboard Jerk.

I’m not saying I want to trick people into thinking he’s a good guy either. I’m aiming more for Ambiguous Guy—is he the hero? the villain? an anti-hero? Maybe an anti-villain? I’d rather have the reader unsure of his place in the book than going, “Oh, yeah, this must be the baddy. Look, he’s kicking a pregnant dog in the stomach. La-de-da.”

What sets Deadlock Rot’s main story into motion is that this guy receives a phone call with some good news, which leads him on a journey, blah, blah, blah, death, destruction, voodoo, gay sex, chain saws, etc., etc., etc. But we don’t know this guy from Adam, so what do we care about his god-damned good news? Whoop-dee-do, right?

But you’ve gotta care, because you’re stuck with this guy for the first part of the book, and I don’t want you to put it back on the shelf and buy someone else’s book instead! I’ve gotta make you care. (And you know what? I’ve gotta make me care, too; otherwise I’m just doodling facial features and clothes on a piece of cardboard, aren’t I? AND YOU CAN TELL!) So for the first chapter, instead of having his phone ring, I put him into some trouble. Now when he gets that phone call in chapter two and thinks it’s going to get him out of that trouble, whew! That’s a good thing! Let’s see how this phone call is going to manage that! The reader doesn’t see it as “Yeah, yeah, lucky him, what do I care?” anymore because now the phone call doesn’t just come—it comes as the solution to a problem (that leads to many more problems–yay, story!).

And…I still have today’s writing to do (I’m in the middle of chapter three) and grocery shopping and twenty minutes of hating the concept of “fitness,” plus dinner to eat and time to spend with family and alla that, so…. Laterz!

¹I’m writing chronologically. Once I have the pieces all down, I’ll shuffle them around and see if it works better in some other order. But for now it’s chronological, and chronologically the bad guy comes first.